Monday, April 26, 2010

We go to Croatia quite a bit. It is a 4 hour drive from Austria and voila we are on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. We love it so much that we bought a condo there 3 years ago. As much as I LOVE Italy it is so crowded in the summer that you literally have to get to the beach by 7am to secure a very tiny spot.

So we head down there and my workouts have to be flexible because:1) There is NO gym on the entire island. Can you believe that?2) I can not workout in the morning (my optimal time) in the condo because I will be either waking up my family or the people below us.3) After about 10am forget about doing it outside. It is TOO hot.

Solution:I get up early and take my jumprope down to the beach. That's all I need. 30 minutes and I am ready to jump in the water.

I made this last summer, so in case you are traveling, if there's a will there's a way.

And it also clears out the cobwebs if you happen to indulge in some down-time holiday wine and pizza, which I most certainly do.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

I have purposely avoided doing a fast on my "hard" day because it is my hard day and why add more to my plate. Or in this case, remove all food from it. haha.But I wanted to try it and see if it would really be so bad.

First off, I like to fast on busy days. The time flies and I am distracted from thnking about eating. Those are ideal fast days. My "hard" day consists of teaching 2 classes, pretty hard ones. I do back to back kickboxing classes on Wednesday night and that surprisingly is easier than one class mid-day and one in the evening.

I ate breakfast at 8am and my fast goes until tomorrow at 8am. I taught my first class at 12:15pm. For some reason I was having an off-German day. That is when I completely struggle with the language and I really hate it. I get self-conscious and I am out of the groove. But I wasn't hungry and my energy was fine. Now I am an hour and 1/2 out from my evening class and I am hungry. Nothing I can't stand though. We'll see how this one goes. I kind of don't imagine my German improving, but right now I am thinking about how I can't wait to go to sleep.

I could throw a cicuit wrokout at them and supervise, but I do want to know how it is to do the fasts and the workouts. So no cheating.

And this pic has nothing to do with this post except I am thinking that sign for the pizzaria in the back is looking yummy. Italian cops are the best. They wear white belts, and are super-friendly. Oh wait, all Italian men are super-friendly. Even the toddlers are flirtatious.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Sunday, April 18, 2010

In case you don't know I live in Austria. I am orginally from San Francisco. Truth be told, I would rather live in California, but there are lots of great things about living in Europe.

I live in a village. Not a city, not a town, a true village. There is a major city 1/2 an hour away, but when you are in the country you would never know it. Think Sound of Music.

There lots of reasons we live here, but I won't get into those. I do appreciate and love that we have so much healthy food right from out neighbors.

Today I went "grocery shopping." First stop:

1) The Bakery. They make absolutely the most divine bread called bauernbrot or farmer's bread. It is similar to my San Fran fav, sourdough. Yum! The baker is a student of mine and she always smells of sugar and dough. She is also the size of a minute and has 3 kids, one of whom is a 5 month old baby.

2) Frau Hirsch- She is lovingly known as the "Egg Lady." She has the most spoiled chickens I have had the pleasure of meeting. She cooks 2 hot meals a day for them and they are some happy campers.

3) Frau Fuchs- She is the "Cheese Lady." She makes cheese, butter and bread. We also buy apples and potatoes from her organic farm.

4) Frau Pichler- The Milk Lady. She's got milk. We go by anytime after 5pm and pick up the milk. It is still warm and it is not pasturized. I am not a milk drinker, in fact it grosses me out that it is warm. but it is the way to do it if you are a milk drinker.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Maybe that last post was a little self-righteous. Food tends to get religious and everyone thinks their way is the best way. I thought about apologizing for getting down on people's food choices, but I am not really sorry about my feelings towards that crap.

What absolutely kills me is kids eating processed fake food. It is the same with smoking. I will say it again, THEY STILL SMOKE IN PUBLIC PLACES here in Austria. And to top it off, you will see babies strapped in their little seats with 4 adults puffing away right next to them.

Need I say more? Ok, one more thing, child abuse.

It's one thing to not really know what good nutrition is and think you are doing your best for your family. It's just lame and stupid to NOT know second hand smoke would be bad for a baby.

Ok, I am going off again.

Serenity now. Today I teach 2 classes. The first is for a large office in the city. They are the school board employees and it started out as a healthy-back, stretching class. It has morphed into a kickboxing and yoga class. Anyway it is a lot of fun and my students are great. I really feel appreciated. Well all my classes are like that. I am so grateful to have a job that I love, would do for free and get paid. Right on.

Class number 2 is my hardcore P90X/Insanity/boot camp/muay thai kickboxing class. I love this one too. I have a group of like-minded woman that love to sweat.

Next month I will start training the football (soccer) teams. They want some upper-body training since their sport is lower-body dominant. Oh yeah, they will get aquainted with the chin-up bar for sure. THAT should be fun.

That's all I got. I was going to take a pic in a happy-the-flippin'-weather-is-warmer pic, but the hubby borrowed my camera. So I leave you with this pic.

*Me and Dad: What is scary is that he was 10 years younger than me in that pic. Yikes. Anyway I think it's cool and what is even cooler is that my dad still looks THAT good. No sh$t.

OK, I'm back. I just want to scream when I hear that "stoking the metabolism, starvation-mode, eat-every-3-hours" rhetoric. There I said it. I refrain from making those SCREAMING comments on blogs because it is just too ingrained in people. But this is my blog, so I can do what I want. I would find a smiley with the tongue sticking out, but I am too lazy for that.

While I am bitching away here, I would like to say that I get very disappointed when I see recipes that start out with a mouth-watering picture and then I get to the ingredients and see Splenda or some other non-food.

I say this because I want you to be healthy. I really do. Yeah, I harp on being in Austria and the differences between Americans, but take note. People in Europe generally eat better. Not less, better. There are less fat people and less cellulite. Splenda is not sold here. Maybe it is sour grapes...kidding.

You may think you are getting away with something saving calories with fake food but the chickens will come home to roost and you do not want a body filled up with toxic waste.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Kelly Olexa's post about intermittent fasting inspired me to come over here and post something.I am passionate about the fasting. I found Eat Stop Eat 2 years ago and it changed my life. I am no longer stressed about food. I could go on and on, but buy the book. It is worth it.

I have also used the Leangains intermittent fasting program and had great results with a training and nutrition program from Martin Berkhan.

What I will do is show what intermittent fasting accomplished.

I started out like this:Not too horrible, but with too much bodyfat for my liking.

This is me today, 2 years later. It did not take 2 years to get here, but it is easy to stay here.

I am 45 years old and have been at this for what I consider my whole life. It does not get easier to stay lean. It gets harder, but the fasting has been the way to go for me. I am not selling anything or do I profit from writing this. I just want people to know that there is another way and it is worth a try.